DELAMINATION OF THE FUEL TANK LINING

eastendpowerstroke · October 10, 2006

We seem to be having a large amount of trucks with fuel tanks delaminating is this a problem accross the country or only in my area (northeast).

What do you think is the root cause

?

Keith Browning · October 10, 2006

Didn't Ford release a TSB or SSM about the use of BIO diesel de-laminating fuel tanks? Like, just how many have you seen that are doing this?

Another question: How do you identify a de-laminated fuel tank? (just so I know in case I run into one)

Joey Kaylor · October 11, 2006

i dont see how bio can delam a tank. knock the sludge off one that has had old shit in it for a while, yes. but to delam a tank, it has to be some rather potent chemical, cause it would damage the injectors and other crap too.

i seem to remember seeing some from of TSB about tanks coming apart, and ford doing everything they could to not say it was their fault due to using a shitty supplier though. or at least hearing about it. one truck i had an OASIS ran on showed quite a bit of labor and parts replaced due to a tank coming apart/trash.

jaysonfordtech · October 11, 2006

If I remember correct it was something about the methylethelkeytones in biofuel and mixed diesel/ biofuel that was causing the problems. We have not seen any here lately, but we have had a truck that was running bio that had to have several injectors and a tank replaced at another nearby dealer if I remember correct.

Joey Kaylor · October 12, 2006

sombtich, bio has MEK?! HAZ MAT classes we refer to it as methyl ethyl deathyl. apparently its some nasty ass shit.

eastendpowerstroke · October 12, 2006

this guy has 5 trucks from 04-06 all have had one tank one 04 has had two tanks I'm putting the tank in the 06 as I write this I just put 3 injectors in it on 10/10 that when I found the insides of the tank packed into the fuel filter.

I have probably done 12-15 tanks due to this problem so it's not just this guys fuel. /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/banghead.gif

eastendpowerstroke · October 12, 2006

photos follow first two are new tank.

Posted Image

eastendpowerstroke · October 12, 2006

If I remember correct it was something about the methylethelkeytones in biofuel and mixed diesel/ biofuel

The TSB from ford addressed methanol,ethanol,ketone's and concentrations of bio diesel greater than 5% causing fuel tank delamination.

I'm not a chemist by any stretch but I think "MEK" is something different and very nasty.

Joey Kaylor · October 13, 2006

oh, well in that case....

there are about four methods of cooking bio, they dont all use the same chemicals, but those are the most common ones for most blends. they'll use either methanol or ethanol, the main reason for that is to get rid of the water when you wash the fuel after cooking.

jaysonfordtech · October 16, 2006

Just this morning on fmc dealer there is broadcast message 6340 saying that biodiesel blends greater than 5% is the cause of the delamination. It also may be people adding fuel dryer that contains alcohol that is causing some of this.

blown99 · October 17, 2006

I just attended a fuel seminar on the new ULSDF and they got into the bio diesel a bit. Both stanadyne and bosch have had a lot of warranty issues with the bio diesel. The stuff is actually etching the metal which changes its color and surface texture rendering the parts useless. They went on to say that there was no advantage to people using bio, higher cost, lower BTU's, and even higher emissions. So I could definatly see it delaminating the tanks since it is strong enough to etch steel parts.

eastendpowerstroke · October 20, 2006

I got the call this morning that the same guy is bringing his 2000 f-550 in for no power I bet it needs a tank.

While I do believe that since mass produced bio is still relatively new it may have some infant mortality issues but this guy isn't the only one with problems, and since you need to really hunt to find a place selling bio diesel around here I doubt it's the cause.

CERTIFIEDFORDTEC · November 21, 2006

We see alot of the delaminations here for some reason. One company each truck gets a tank aboput every 5ooo miles. I personally feel its a supplier issue but just my opinion. Note that on the 6.0l doing the inlet restriction to rule out a delaminated tank is useless since there isnt a filter in the tank pickup anymore. It plugs up both fuels on the 6.0l and i've seen it damage injetcor due toi the lack in fuel pressure.

Bruce Amacker · November 21, 2006

I've had fleets with this problem in California, Oregon, and Illinois. The fleet in Oregon replaced every tank in a fleet of Evan Meds that ran regular fuel, no bio. Ford won't stand behind this, but IH does in similar circumstances.

Good Luck!

partsmanBB · May 8, 2007

We've done dozens of these tanks in the last year, some more than once-many repeaters after only 8-10k miles. To a man, each owner swears he is running only good fuel! It's starting to get ugly with this issue...and now with the ssm about the new tank, with "a greater robustness to bio-diesel", we are sure to soon see these guys back here, looking for a refund and/or a new tank. This will be only a temporary band-aid for the real problem, whatever that may be-Ford stands by its 5% bio max rule, so this will not be the end.